Reverse Scheduling: How to Complete an Overwhelming Project and Defeat Procrastination
How do you face an overwhelming goal or project?
Peter Drucker, author of The Effective Executive, once wrote,
“Strategic planning does not deal with future decisions. It deals with the futurity of present decisions.”
If you’re an overthinker, you may find it easy to plan things out — creating your bucket list, your long to-do lists that you often forget to revisit…
“I want to write a book!”
“I’d love to start that side hustle freelance project!”
“I’d love to launch my Instagram personal brand!”
“I’d love to start my eCommerce shop!”
But you find yourself struggling with choosing the most important project within those lists. And that makes you feel more stuck.
“Decisions only exist in the present.” — Peter Drucker
But the question is: how could you make decisions right now if you feel like you never have enough time and are overwhelmed?
The Solution to Overwhelm and Indecisiveness
I self-published my first eBook on Amazon in 2020. And it failed.
Aside from not knowing the big steps towards publishing an eBook, I missed a huge step — building an audience.
I even postponed writing the book because it felt overwhelming and stressful. Simply put, I didn’t have a plan. I always believed there was a “right way” to start.
And when you can’t see the steps towards the completion of a project, your gut will ask you to stop and postpone your dream.
You might be going through the same thing today — you feel like you never have enough time, are very OCD on your routines, can’t begin marching towards your goal because you fear failing.
I aim to be of service to you and share the concept I now use whenever I have a big project such as creating a lead magnet for my personal brand or projects in our Church.
The concept is called ‘Reverse Scheduling.’
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The Concept of Reverse Scheduling
Reverse scheduling is about breaking down a big project into smaller chunks of outputs that are manageable.
Without breaking down a big project into smaller parts, you’ll always be overwhelmed. You won’t be able to focus. The key idea in Reverse Scheduling is to focus on one thing at a time without worrying about the next steps of a project.
Multi-tasking is not where your brain shines to function well. You might argue, “But I thrive well when I’m multi-tasking, John!”
Stop Multi-Tasking:
- First, it’s the dopamine rush that makes you feel good because you feel like you’re making progress on lots of things (e.g. having multiple tabs open).
- Also, it is not healthy psychologically as when you multi-task, you are using more energy you could have used to produce one masterpiece over twenty fiddled uncompleted projects.
Whether it’s Bill Gates who focused on coding as he build Microsoft, Steve Jobs who focused on the iPhone for years, or Brendon Burchard who focused on creating his first blockbuster online course in 18 months, the underlining theme of the successful people we look up to is focus.
And you can’t focus if you don’t have a plan. You can’t possibly focus on the big project you’re about to tackle if it has vague deadlines, unclear weekly outputs, and overwhelming to-do lists.
It’s like climbing Mt. Everest without a map and preparation. You’re going to die, right?
It’s the same thing with your aspirational projects — be it landing bigger clients, producing an online course, or building a larger audience. You need a systematic approach that you follow to avoid walking with your eyes closed, doing random day-to-day tasks.
So here it is — let me share with you the 3 steps of my ‘Reverse Scheduling’ method to help you overcome overwhelm.
1. Identify The Big Deadline: When not hit, the building collapses
Think of that big project that scares the heck out of you. In this article, I’m going to use ‘self-publishing your first book’ as an example.
To identify your big deadline, you must ask a very important question first.
When is the real deadline if not hit, the whole building collapses, and everything becomes ruined? This is the time to be honest with yourself.
Don’t answer with a vague deadline like “3 months from now.” When — specifically.
- Vague Deadline: December 2021
- Real Deadline: Sunday, 19th of December, 2021
By identifying the specific big deadline, you can clearly count how many weeks you are away in which you must start posting on Instagram, or whatever project you are working on right now.
Clarity breeds focus. Moving on to the second step.
2. The 6 Sub-Projects: Break it down to 6 big steps
Before proceeding, I really want to nail a point first with an aim to eliminate a false belief that you may have right now.
Yes, identifying the big project and the big deadline is daunting. But here’s a key breakthrough for you — feeling anxious as you picture this project is normal.
Creatives and artists overthink that it is the wrong thing to feel anxious as they approach the beginning of their project.
The key is to acknowledge that it’s normal to feel it initially, that there are steps that can help you decrease stress.
Now that that’s out of our way, think about your big project now.
Ask yourself,
“What are the 6 big steps I must take to accomplish this project?”
- Write the book
- Revise and edit
- Design the cover + Create bonuses
- Market and promote the book
- Build your book email funnel
- Self-publish your book
Six is an arbitrary number. Yours could only take five big steps/sub-projects to hit that big deadline.
The most important thing here, though, is for you to string these sub-projects in chronological order. Which one should you do first? Which one is second? Which one is the last?
String it all up. This is your freedom. This is the key to eliminate 90% of the stress you feel with your current project.
Your brain must see the step-by-step actions towards the completion of the project, or your gut will ask you to pause and procrastinate.
Get your journal and brainstorm the six sub-projects that matter.
3. The Weekly Outputs: Lay out the Smaller Deadlines
For every sub-project, what are the weekly outputs you must produce to accomplish them? Let’s go back to our example.
To publish the book, your first sub-project is to write the book. Then your weekly outputs will look something like this.
September: Write the book
- First Week: Write Chapters 1–2
- Second Week: Write Chapters 3–4
- Third Week: Write Chapters 5–6
- Fourth Week: Write Chapters 7–8
The big deadline gives you clarity on how many weeks you are away from publishing your book.
Smaller deadlines (weekly outputs), on the other hand, are the secret to staying focused to hit your big deadline.
Get your weekly outputs done on time, and you’ll surely hit your big deadline.
On your sub-projects 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, rinse and repeat.
Bonus tip: Put your big deadline, 6 sub-projects, and your weekly outputs up in a wall somewhere in your home or office. Look at your weekly outputs every day — this will help you focus.
What if you don’t hit your deadlines?
Most people are crippled when they don’t get things done on a deadline.
There are two things you can do:
- Do your best to avoid missing your deadlines. This means SWAT team on writing chapters 1 and 2 this week and do focused work. There’s no secret.
- Or you can just move on and adjust. If you didn’t finish writing chapters 1 and 2 this week, adjust. At least you learned from it and you now know how much time it realistically takes for you to write a chapter.
Conclusion
The key is to not over-plan. Have a plan and believe in yourself that you can figure things out along the way. It’s not about having the perfect plan at the beginning. It’s about making mistakes, adjusting, and perfecting your path to the top as you go.
What you can do right now to take action is something like this…
This is my vision wall.
It includes my 90-day, 1-year, 3-year visions and steps to achieve them. I’m certain they are not perfect but having a battle plan to look at every single morning allows you to stay focused marching towards your aspirational goals.
Look at your big deadline, 6 sub-projects, and weekly outputs every single day. Attention breeds focus.
Focus — focus is your anchor in this world full of overwhelming digital distractions.
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